Darrell Davis: Stars have Nill working for them

Can anybody name the Dallas Stars’ general manager?

No idea? Nill? Actually, that’s a pun. It’s Jim Nill.

An Alberta native, Nill used to play junior hockey for the Medicine Hat Tigers. His playing career brought him regularly through Saskatchewan, where he also visited while scouting for various NHL clubs after he retired as a player. His recommendations helped the Detroit Red Wings win multiple Stanley Cups before Dallas hired him as GM six years ago. The Stars are poised to play the St. Louis Blues in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Nill was a gracious, hard-working player — I learned that first-hand as a junior hockey official — who also spent 1980 with Canada’s Olympic hockey team, which was coached by my father. There were better-known guys on that team, like Randy Gregg, Glenn Anderson and Paul MacLean. But none of the players parlayed their hockey knowledge and love for the game into such a long, successful and unheralded career.

And isn’t that the beauty of hockey?